Path to Transcendence

Chapter 553: Irritating Serpent

All of his friends managed to go on through to the next round. The only person who wasn’t able to go on through was Lyra, though if Julius was being honest, it was an expected outcome. She had some apparent weaknesses compared to the rest of the field.

Derek handily won his own fight. Julius was impressed by just how strong Derek had become. The conviction in how he fought was vastly different than a mere year ago.

Aubrey had won her fight fairly easily as well. However, she also had an easier matchup than Edgar. Her opponent didn’t have the necessary perception to keep up with her clones. It was over for them before the match even started.

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your next fight?” Aubrey asked him, poking him in the side as they watched another match finish up.

“It’s okay, I am not too worried. Based on how the Empire has been organizing the matches, it would appear the stronger seeds are fighting the lower seeds.”

“Oh? So you think you are one of the higher seeds?” Aubrey asked him.

Julius shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Be careful, I heard that your next opponent is quite… unsavory,” Derek commented.

Julius turned to look at his friend curiously. “Really? Why do you say that?”

“During his match yesterday, the guy mocked and humiliated his opponent the entire time. He also belongs to the Umbral Serpents Guild. It’s not official yet, but he has already accepted their invitation. They are not exactly known to be the most honorable sort,” Derek explained.

Julius was intrigued. “How so?”

“Well, they are a guild that specializes in poisons and infiltration missions. Everyone knows that they dabble in more illegal things, but there hasn’t been any solid evidence to prove this.”

“Ohh. So bad guys?” Julius said with realization.

“Pretty much.”

“Don’t worry. I will be careful,” he promised, despite not feeling much worry about it. He wasn’t concerned about poisons; his healing skill was too good for most poisons to have any effect on him. Not to mention, his improvements with his ruinous aura. If his healing failed to hold it off, which was unlikely in the first place, he would destroy it with his ruinous aura.

He looked over at the clock placed over the door to House Zenith’s suite and sighed. “Iʼd better get going. It would be embarrassing if I forfeited because I was late.”

He saw Lily roll her eyes. “Yeah, imagine not showing up to your own finals and losing because of that?”

He looked around, confused, and shrugged. “Who would do something like that? They must have been embarrassed or maybe were just too tired.”

He ignored Lily’s mental slap she sent to him and continued to walk his way out of the suite and down to the stadium. He had a certain serpent to beat.

***

“By the Authority of the Luminous Empire, I declare this bout to be sanctioned and witnessed by its nobility and citizens. There will be no interference or external influences during this match.

The announcer paused, grinning before he flourished his hand to Julius’s opponent.

Julius heard a smattering of boos filtering through the barrier before the man was allowed to introduce his opponent. It was clear that his opponent hadn’t left a favorable image during his last match.

“On my left stands Corbin Halevo from Blackglass Academy. He has clawed his way up to this point in the tournament, proving that he is indeed a top talent,” the announcer said and turned to point at Julius, ignoring the boos and insults hurled at the other boy.

Corbin, Julius’s opponent, didnʼt seem too bothered by this either. In fact, he seemed amused, and a smirk was on his face as he stared up at the crowd.

“His opponent will be Julius Snow, hailing from Goldencrest Academy. Some of you might already be familiar with the first year that has skyrocketed to the top of the tournament in explosive fashion,” the man exclaimed with a cheerful smile.

Unlike his opponent, Julius appeared to be exceptionally well-received. He didn’t hear any boos or anything like that. They were all cheering his name, and he could have sworn he saw several posters with his name on them.

He rubbed his head, embarrassed at the attention, but he also noticed that the smirk on his opponent’s face had slid off when he heard how the crowd reacted to Julius. It was a very different reception from his own.

“Who will win? Will it be the experienced poison user from Blackglass Academy? Or will it be the first year that has quickly become one of the most popular participants this year?”

The announcer let the crowd cheer for a little while. Letting the noise build, Julius could practically feel their passion and emotions, despite not being a psychic like Lily.

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Julius had some time to look at his opponent and scrutinize him. He could see what his friends meant by unsavory. The guy in front of him certainly seemed like a picture-perfect representative of the word.

He was wearing all black, yet it still seemed dirty somehow. The guy also had an objectively handsome face, but the sneer on his lips ruined it. Julius didn’t like to make assumptions off the bat, but he couldn’t help but dislike the guy from the get-go.

After half a minute, the announcer finally brought his hand into the air. It was a small, delicate action, but to his surprise, he felt a weird pulse of something rippling from the announcer, and suddenly, the man had regained the crowdʼs attention. Their clamoring died down. It was like magic.

This time, he spoke again, but unlike before, his tone was sharper and more serious.

“This fight ends only when one combatant can no longer stand.”

The announcer raised his hand, looking at both Julius and his opponent.

It was weird. Julius wasn’t nervous, but he felt his heart beat loudly in his chest, waiting for the signal.

“Begin.”

To his interest, his opponent vanished from sight the moment the match began. All Julius saw was a puff of black smoke, and Corbin was no longer there.

It was quite a curious skill. Julius had seen many types of stealth and illusion skills. They often manipulated light to accomplish this. However, this was different.

It was a different type of magic that he wasn’t familiar with. It almost seemed similar to shadow magic, the kind that he had seen Clan Genshen members use.

Julius stood there unmovingly as he tried to examine this skill. However, he was forced to move his head to the side when a blade attempted to remove it from his shoulders.

While his opponent could go invisible, it would appear that he didn’t have any way to hide from Julius or spatial senses in general. It basically made the guy’s skill useless. In fact, it probably made it harder for the guy because it used mana and focus to keep running.

It also gave a guy a false sense of security.

Julius kept on dodging the attacks with minimal movements. He wasn’t trying to be disrespectful or anything, but merely trying to understand how the guy’s skill worked.

But perhaps this was the wrong person to do this to. His opponent was getting frustrated. Julius didn’t even need to see the guy’s face to know this. He could tell from his increasingly frustrated movements as he swung at Julius.

Eventually, this frustration reached a peak, and the guy suddenly reappeared, his sword pointing at Julius, shaking with anger.

“Come on! Fight me, you fucking coward! You think you are better than me just because you consumed a shit ton of treasures and drugs! Hah! You are pathetic,” the guy spat on the ground with a shocking amount of venom.

Julius, on the other hand, looked at the guy with bafflement.

“Drugs? Is that what people think I did to get this strong?” He asked out loud.

His opponent paused his attempt at dicing Julius into bits and scoffed. “Of course. You think a first year would be able to get this strong otherwise? I bet your soul is on the verge of collapsing.”

Julius was about to deny the guy, but he realized that the guy wasn’t exactly wrong. Julius’s soul had been on the verge of collapsing, and to be honest, he still didn’t know if it would when he eventually advanced to Tier 4. That was still a bit of a worry despite Freya believing that his second soul evolution had helped matters.

“See? You can’t even deny it,” the guy hissed when he saw Julius staying silent.

Julius was about to clear up the misunderstanding, but he was forced to dodge another strike from his opponent. The sword had been aimed right at his eyes.

“Don’t worry, once I beat you, I’ll show you are nothing but a fraud,” Corbin taunted him and continued to swing at Julius. He must have realized that hiding was useless and had stopped using the stealth skill.

However, Julius looked on thoughtfully when a cloud of black smoke suddenly collapsed on his position. The black smoke was clearly bad news, but Julius was slightly intrigued and allowed the smoke to make contact with him.

Right away, he could tell that smoke was some nasty stuff. It was poison mixed with something else. He could feel his body growing weaker and weaker. His flesh was breaking down at a rapid rate; the way it affected his mana was quite interesting as well.

It wasn’t like other disrupting effects he had dealt with. This was more focused on contamination. It was like the smoke was trying to spread poison to the rest of his mana.

Julius would have loved to examine this smoke closer, but he couldn’t indulge in that. He thought about asking the guy if he could allow Julius to observe it afterward, but quickly decided it would be a bad idea. It was unlikely that this guy felt very positive about him and probably would tell him to go to hell.

To his surprise, the life mana that had been carving out his channels seemed to realize what was happening to Julius and reacted all on its own. The black smoke, which had been eating away at Julius, was suddenly met by the brutal nature that was his life mana.

To Julius’s amusement, the clash between these two energies didn’t last very long. The black smoke was vaporized as if it were nothing. The life mana almost seemed to have consumed the smoke and used it to fuel itself.

Julius watched as the cruel taunting expression on his opponent’s face faded into one of confusion.

“What did you do?” The guy asked aggressively.

“Sorry?” Julius offered, not knowing what else to say.

This only seemed to irritate the guy further, and Julius soon found himself under a frenzied swarm of attacks. It was actually quite dangerous. Despite casually avoiding the wild swings of his opponent’s sword, it wasn’t as easy as he made it seem.

The speed itself was something that most people would have issues with. The poison coating the blade was another problem. The blade didn’t even need to touch its target; there was an ethereal edge a few inches from the sharpened steel.

Seeing Julius on the back foot must have given the guy some confidence, and Julius spotted an emerging look on the guy’s face. It was an arrogant and cruel smirk, one that had Julius slowly frowning to himself as it continued to grow.

“Is that all you got?” His opponent taunted as Julius kept on avoiding or parrying the sword with his aura-woven gauntlets. Sparks of blue light flashed each time his constructs and the sword made contact.

“Pathetic. I’m going to embarrass you in front of all these people. I will show them that you are nothing but a weak fraud.”

Julius did his best to ignore the guy’s taunting, but Corbin must have had a talent or a special skill for irritating people, because Julius felt his impatience growing.

He let some of his irritation bleed through, and he felt his crown slowly pulse dangerously as Julius suddenly snatched his opponent’s sword midair with his bare hand. His face twitched with annoyance as he glared at the smug visage in front of him.